An Italian actor is in a coma after a lynching scene went wrong in a stage play and the actor was strangled, according to The Independent and other sources.

Raphael Schumacher, 27, was wearing a mask for a hanging scene in the experimental play Mirages at the Teatro Lux in Pisa, Italy, when audience members noticed that a prop noose was tightening around his neck and he was trembling. Schumacher was taken down and rushed to a local hospital where he had not regained consciousness as of early Feb. 2. It was not clear why he was not wearing his body harness in the scene.

One of his fellow actors was quoted saying, "The noose should have been fake and a harness should have caught him if he fell. I cannot explain how an incident like this happened."